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Mindful Self-Hypnosis: Faster, Deeper, Better

Learn a combination of mindfulness and self-hypnosis in just one hour.

Mindfulness meditation is all the rage, and rightly so! It’s an effective method with a long pedigree. But it can be elusive and confusing to the newcomer, tied as it is to Buddhist spirituality, which most of us aren’t very familiar with.

As Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” I’ll show you something simpler than mindfulness meditation that works as well or better, at least for beginners. Easier to learn, with fully actionable step-by-step instructions. I call it mindful self-hypnosis.

And if you’re in the Corvallis area, you can sign up for my quick, one-hour class in mindful self-hypnosis. More about that in a bit.

Mindfulness from a Hypnotist’s Perspective

A lot of definitions of mindfulness boil down to “minimizing self-talk.” What is self-talk? Most of us endure a lot of distracting, unhelpful chatter (and imagery) inside our own heads, as we scold ourselves, second-guess ourselves, and generally freak ourselves out. Mindfulness promises to dial this down … and it does.

But let’s ask ourselves, “Does self-talk ever vanish spontaneneously, leaving us in the realm of pure experience, without the internal chatter?” Why, yes! Yes it does. We’ve all experienced this many times.

Our self-talk tends to vanish when:

When something jaw-dropping happens: when we are shocked, fascinated, or amazed.

When we’re absorbed in something: a sunset, a book, a conversation, a task.

When we’re “in the zone” and everything just flows.

When we’re deeply relaxed.

When we are in a hypnotic or meditative trance.

So let’s talk about hypnotic trance for a moment. Achieving a light state of hypnosis is easy: anyone can learn to do it quickly, and by the numbers. It doesn’t take an epiphany or a lot of practice. And, even in a light state of hypnosis, your mind becomes less unruly. it talks less and listens more. And that’s more or less what mindfulness is. And when your unconscious mind is listening, that’s a good time to tell it something useful!

That would be enough by itself to make hypnosis the go-to self-help technique, but wait, there’s more! First, though, let’s answer the question people always ask: “What’s the difference between meditation and hypnosis?”

What’s the Difference Between Mindfulness Meditation and Self-Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is one example of a meditative state. Some people claim that there are several different kinds of meditative states, and maybe they’re right. But we don’t have to concern ourselves with that. For our purposes, the difference is how you use it, and our goal is to have the best of everything. (Why not, right?)

What’s the difference between “regular” hypnosis and self-hypnosis? It’s self-hypnosis if you’re acting as your own hypnotist. With regular hypnosis, someone else is being the hypnotist. It’s as simple as that.

What about hypnosis recordings? They’re somewhere in the middle. In practice, they tend to be more like self-hypnosis.

Self-hypnosis tends to work more slowly, since there isn’t a hypnotist in the room to customize the session, and because you’re wearing your hypnotist hat and your client hat at the same time. But once you learn self-hypnosis, you can use it whenever you want, for free. Often just a few minutes can make a big difference in your day.

What’s a hypnotic suggestion? A hypnotic suggestion is just an affirmation that’s stated when you’re in hypnosis.” If you channel Stuart Smalley and repeat, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me!” in front of a mirror or while you’re walking the dog, it’s an affirmation. If you do it during a self-hypnosis session, it’s a hypnotic suggestion. It’s as simple as that.

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.”
—Henry Ford

The practical difference is that, in hypnosis, your mind is in a receptive state, so suggestions work better. Instead of having to say an affirmation thousands of times before it starts getting real traction, it might take just a few dozen times, or if you’re having a really good day, a handful of times. And this gets better with practice.

What kind of suggestions should we use? Always use suggestions for relaxation and well-being. But we can do so much more! We can craft these hypnotic suggestions to encourage specific results, whatever’s right at the top of your personal improvement to-do list. (Such suggestions are central to hypnosis, but not to mindfulness meditation.)

Listening to Your Unconscious

But mindfulness meditation has something that hypnosis (usually) lacks: a special form of inner dialog. Instead of just talking to your unconscious, you listen. And you respond, but in a particularly simple yet subtle way. How? By acknowledging any response being offered by your body or mind. For example, if I’m using the mantra, “I am now a nonsmoker,” and the thought comes into my head, “This is boring,” I acknowledge to myself that this thought happened, and say “I am now a nonsmoker” again. If the thought “This is boring” happens again, I acknowledge it again. Say, by nodding my head.

The trick here is not to argue with the response, but just to acknowledge that it happened, perhaps favoring it with a regal nod of recognition. If you start arguing with the response, you’ll trigger a hamster-wheel cycle of internal chatter. Returning at once to the mantra prevents this, without denying or ignoring the response. That’s important.

Call and Response

I call this process “call and response.” The mantra (or suggestion, or affirmation) is the call; whatever my mind and body do next is the response. This is standard mindfulness meditation stuff, except that, instead of focusing on our breathing or saying standard mantra like “Om,” we’re going to use a hypnotic suggestion, chosen for your needs at the moment.

For example, if we want to banish insomnia, we might use the suggestion, “I fall asleep when my head touches the pillow.” With mindful self-hypnosis, the basic structure of the session becomes:

Go into hypnosis using a hypnotic induction, such as progressive relaxation.

Take a deep breath.

State “I fall asleep when my head touches the pillow,” either silently or aloud.

If you notice a response from your mind or body,

Acknowledge that the response happened (without analyzing it or following up on it in any way).

If you don’t notice a response by the top of the next breath,

Say, “Relax deeper,” either silently or aloud.

Go to Step 2.

That’s pretty much the whole structure, except that, in a typical session, we’ll use 4-6 suggestions: a few very general ones in the beginning and one or two specific ones at the end.

Why Does Mindful Self-Hypnosis Work?

So here’s the key concept: most of our real thinking, our real decision-making, is done by our unconscious minds. The conscious mind is a wonderful thing, but it’s only a small part of the mind, and most things are done behind our backs, by our unconscious minds.

If we can solve a problem with our unaided conscious minds, that’s what we do. So we’ve already solved most of the problems in that category, and the ones that are left need some heavy lifting from the unconscious mind. How can we do this?

The most obvious methods are to use willpower to practice to build up a good habit. Habits are actions where the unconscious mind can run on autopilot, so with good habits, we do the right thing easily and automatically. This is true for any change we want to make, whether it’s learning to play the guitar or give up smoking. If we keep at it long enough, we’ll get there.

But there’s a problem. We only have a limited amount of willpower, and some tasks require more we’ve got. Rather than guilting ourselves over not having unlimited willpower, let’s do something that works! Let’s look for a willpower booster or a willpower substitute.

Hypnosis provides this. While in hypnosis, you’re patient and can hold focus for a long time, as if you had a willpower transfusion. This also means that distractions have little effect on you, and your negative self-talk fades away. Painful thoughts and feelings become much more comfortable. This clearly makes hypnosis (and self-hypnosis) ideal for resolving stubborn issues.

This is true even for a light trance, the kind beginners at self-hypnosis can achieve easily. And you’ll go even deeper with practice.

Reaching the Whole Mind

If you think of the mind as containing many different structures, where the outlying areas may not get the memo right away, you can see how mindful self-hypnosis works. Take the suggestion, “I enjoy doing paperwork.” With mindful self-hypnosis, it might go like this:

Conscious Mind:[Stating the suggestion] “I enjoy doing paperwork.”

Brain Region #1: No, I don’t.

Brain Region #2: Paperwork is boring.

Brain Region #3: Paperwork is scary!

Conscious Mind: [acknowledges the part it could detect, then repeats the suggestion] “I enjoy doing paperwork.”

Brain Region #4: I like it when it’s all finished, done right, fair and square. That feels good.

Brain Region #1: Well, yeah, that part’s okay.

Brain Region #2: Are you sure?

Conscious Mind: [acknowledges the part it could detect, then repeats the suggestion] “I enjoy doing paperwork.”

Brain region #6: Wait, what? What are we talking about?

Brain region #5: Procrastinating is more unpleasant than the paperwork itself.

And so on. By patiently repeating the suggestion, your entire mind eventually grasps what you want, until even the outlying areas have heard and pondered this.

And as the brain considers, it creates responses, a few of which make it all the way into conscious awareness: as a thought, an emotion, a sensation in the body, an image, a fleeting glimpse of a dream: anything.

In ordinary self-hypnosis, you either try to ignore the response or go deep enough that you don’t notice it anymore. But I think acknowledging it works better: it facilitates the internal process of change.

Acknowledge, Don’t Analyze

These responses are just side effects of the process. When a sculptor is creating a marble statue, the first thing you get is a rubble-strewn floor. And the last thing you get is a statue. You need to acknowledge the rubble to keep from tripping over it, but analyzing or judging the rubble is a waste of time! And it diverts attention from the statue. So sweep the rubble away by acknowledging the responses and letting them go.

Credit Where Credit is Due

I learned the concept of mindful self-hypnosis from Cal Banyan, who developed 7th Path Self-Hypnosis, which you can get as a book/CD set from Amazon.com. The concepts are similar, but the structure is different.

Sign up for my Free Mindful Self-Hypnosis Class!

I teach mindful self-hypnosis classes my Corvallis, Oregon office. The cost is just $50. The class only takes an hour, because the method uses the power of simplicity at multiple points. Sign up below:

Use my online scheduling page by vCita to schedule an appointment with me:

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Robert Plamondon has written three books, received over 30 U.S. patents, founded several businesses, and is an expert on free-range chickens. Robert's publishing company, Norton Creek Press, is a treasure trove of reprinted classics, including Hypnotherapy of War Neuroses, which covers treating PTSD in veterans. Robert and his wife Karen sell free-range chicken and eggs at the Corvallis farmers' markets. Robert's hypnotherapy office is in downtown Corvallis.

Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee that you will get the results you are looking for, or that the results will be permanent. I am certified by the National Guild of Hypnotists. Oregon does not license hypnotherapists, and I operate under Oregon's counseling exemption, ORS 675.825(4)(a).